Updates from oil rig explosion hearings: MMS engineer admits he approved blowout preventer without assurances it would work

Eliot Kamenitz / The Times-PicayuneFrank
Patton, district drilling engineer with MMS permits, testifies Tuesday
to the Mineral Management Service and the U.S. Coast Guard joint
investigation of the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rih.

The various interested companies jockeyed to deflect blame to each other during the tense questioning of Frank Patton, the
agency's New Orleans District drilling engineer, during the hearings into the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

BP representative Richard Godfrey wanted Patton to say that it was Cameron International that built the failed blowout preventer and Halliburton that was responsible for sealing off the well with cement.

To emphasize his point, he asked Patton how important a blowout preventer is in safeguarding the well, and Patton said, "It is probably the most important factor in maintaining safety and control of the well and the safety of the personnel."

But Ned Kohnke of Transocean, the rig operator, moved quickly to point out that BP was the one responsible for the drilling plan and the application.

Coast Guard Capt. Hung Nguyen and Jason Mathews, an MMS representative on the investigative panel, jumped in to emphasize that the blowout preventer is not the primary defense against catastrophe striking an oil well.

Under their questioning, Patton said that mud weight in the well and the drilling riser are actually the main pressure controls, while the blowout preventer is a secondary defense.

"So, is it safe to say that if properly functioning within the proper drilling mud weights you would not even need the BOP (blowout preventer)?" Mathews asked.

"Yes," Patton said.

3:20 p.m.

Eliot Kamenitz / The Times-PicayuneFrank
Patton, district drilling engineer with MMS permits, testifies Tuesday
to the Mineral Management Service and the U.S. Coast Guard joint
investigation of the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rih.

Under scrutiny from officials in his own agency, the local Minerals Management Service
engineer who approved BP's application to drill under the Deepwater
Horizon admitted that he approved the blowout preventer that failed to
stop the Gulf of Mexico oil spill without assurances that its last-ditch mechanism would work on the drill pipe the company was using.

Jason Mathews, an MMS official who sits on the six-member joint
Coast Guard and MMS investigative board, questioned Frank Patton, the
agency's New Orleans District drilling engineer, about his approval of
BP's drilling permit. Mathews noted that MMS regulation 250.416(e)
requires would-be drillers to submit proof that the blowout preventer
they are using to shut off the well will have enough power to shear a
drill pipe in case of an emergency.

Those mechanisms on the 450-ton blowout preventer at the bottom of
the seabed are called blind shear rams, a pair of high-pressure valves
and blades that are supposed to slice through a gushing drill pipe and
close off a well leak. But attempts to get those shear rams to operate
on the well below the Deepwater Horizon have been unsuccessful since
the April 20 disaster.

Patton testified he was not aware of any such requirement and never
demands it from more than 100 applications his office reviews each year.

"I have never been told to look for this statement," Patton said.
The BP application had "no information on blind shear rams' ability to
shear the drill pipe used."

"If they didn't submit it, why did we approve it?" Mathews asked.

"That is one thing I don't look for in my approval process," Patton said. "I've never looked for that statement there."

"Is this just you, or is this MMS-wide? " Mathews persisted.

"I'm not sure," Patton said sheepishly.

Another MMS official on the panel, John McCarroll, continued to put
the pressure on. He asked if Patton was aware of a 2004 study for MMS
by WEST Engineering that found problems with blowout preventers
shearing heavy drill pipe. Patton said he wasn't. McCarroll asked him
when he took over as the permitting engineer in New Orleans. Patton
said 2008.

"And that report was written in 2004," McCarroll repeated.

2:20 p.m.

Eliot Kamenitz / The Times-PicayunePaul
Erickson, first mate of the Damon B. Bankston, testifies on Tuesday to
the Mineral Management Services and the United States Coast Guard joint
investigation of the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon. The Bankston was
alongside the rig, pumping mud when the explosion occured.

Paul Erickson, first mate of the Damon B. Bankston, said he and
other Bankston crew members were vaguely aware of the Deepwater Horizon
having problems with the well. He said that as long as six weeks before
the accident, they had to clear mud off the rig because of what they
heard was a "loss of circulation."

"A comment was made that it was a difficult well, not typical," Erickson said.

But on April 20, the day of the accident all seemed to be going
well, he said. The Bankston had stopped collecting drilling mud from
the rig at 5:17 p.m., and they didn't hear anything from the rig crew
until the accident, at a few seconds before 9:53 p.m.

Erickson had some of the most detailed descriptions of the
geyser-like blowout that preceded the explosion. He said it wasn't dark
mud, but what looked like seawater that billowed out just to the aft
side of the derrick, then ignited in a flash over the liquid, he said.

"The liquid was coming out over the cargo and then the fire emerged
over the top of the liquid, at which point I yelled , 'Fire, fire, fire
on the rig!' and ran for the general alarm," said the 63-year-old
merchant marine veteran with a shaved head, a white beard and two large
hoop earings in his left ear.

Erickson described an immediate and large response by the Bankston
and 17 other vessels that were in the area at the time of the accident.

"It was a remarkable and beautiful response, really," Erickson,
saving special praise for his captain, Landry, for essentially
coordinating all the other vessels.

1:58 p.m.: Bankston first mate pinpoints time of distress signal

According to Paul Erickson, first mate of the Damon B. Bankston, the
official time of the rig's global distress signal was 9:52:57 p.m. on
April 20.

1:30 p.m.: Bankston crew members manned rescue boat, aided survivors

Eliot Kamenitz / The Times-PicayuneAnthony
Gervasio, a crew member of the Damon Bankston, testifies on Tuesday to
the United States Coast Guard and Minerals Management Service panel
investigating the sinking of the Deep Water Horizon oil rig. The
Bankston was along side of the rig, pumping mud when the explosion
occured.

The Bankston's chief engineer, Anthony Gervasio, testified that he
and another Bankston crew member used a small rescue boat to fish
several people out of the waters around the burning oil rig. Some of
the survivors were stuck in water that was itself on fire, and another
group floated helplessly in a life raft that they couldn't get untied
from the burning rig.

"As we went over there, a life raft was lowered. We pulled three
people out of the water and drove over to the life raft and tied a line
onto their raft. We were proceeding to back up. The only problem with
that was the life raft was tied off to the rig. We pulled off and
couldn't go nowhere. Nobody had a knife. I know there's knife in the
life raft. But (it was) dark, (people were) discombobulated. So Louis
(Langlois, who was with Gervasio in the rescue boat) gave them a knife."

Gervasio said he heard the same release of gas before the explosion
as his captain described. Like Landry, Gervasio took special note of
the sound, but unlike Landry, Gervasio said he didn't find anything
strange about it, though he did go outside to investigate.

"It wasn't an abnormal release," Gervasio said. "It wasn't prolonged. It was just me being curious."

"One of the gentlemen you saved was an M-I hand and he is eternally
grateful, and it sounds to me like you were a hero that night," Eason
said.

Gervasio was asked about whether he'd heard any rig crew members
discussing the cause of the explosions, which set off the first
controversy of the session.

Ned Kohnke, who was at the hearing representing rig owner Transocean, objected to the request for hearsay.

"Given the gravitas of what we're doing here, I'm not sure he can
testify to what's fact," Kohnke said. "He's being asked what did you
overhear from some unknown person."

But the panel's co-chairman, Coast Guard Capt. Hung Nguyen, said
this wasn't a court of law, but rather an effort to build a picture of
events.

Gervasio then shared what an unknown crew member suggested may have caused the explosions.

"I was sitting around some gentlemen who thought the air or gas
blowing off accumulated in the spaces in the engine room and had caught
on fire and had blew up," Gervasio said.

12:40 p.m.: Reconvenes with testimony of Bankston crew member

The hearing reconvened with the testimony of Anthony Gervasio, chief
engineer of the vessel Damon B. Bankston and coxswain of the rescue
boat.

John McCusker / The Times-PicayuneCapt.
Alwin Landry, master of the Damon B. Bankston, an oil service vessel
that was next to the Deepwater Horizon when the rig exploded and caught
fire in April, consults the ship's log at the hearing into the incident
Tuesday in Kenner.

11:45 a.m.: Rig captain pressed "kill switch" to shut off well before jumping into water

Capt. Alwin Landry of the vessel Damon B. Bankston, testified that
the captain of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, Curt R. Kuchta, was one
of the last to abandon ship and did so by jumping into the water.

Once Kuchta got to the Bankston, the two captains met. Landry said
that's when Kuchta, whom he called "Captain Curt," told Landry that the
Deepwater Horizon crew had pressed a button, called a "kill switch," to
activate a last-ditch mechanism to block off the opening to the well,
5,000 feet under the sea.

"He acknowledged they pressed it and didn't know if it worked or not," Landry said.

Landry was asked about the failure of the blowout preventer's
safeguards by BP lawyer Richard Godfrey. Meanwhile, more than 1,000
miles away in Washington, D.C., a top BP executive testifying before
Congress blamed the blowout preventer for the accident.

Coast Guard Capt. Hung Nguyen, a member of the panel, commended
Landry and his crew for their role in saving 115 members of the oil rig
crew. Landry said he was confident that his vessel recovered all of the
rig crewmembers who managed to abandon ship.

11:05 a.m.: Investigator refers to rocks or 'maybe cement' found on Bankston

David Dykes, who co-chairs the investigative panel for Minerals
Management Service, said BP picked up rock samples, "maybe cement,"
from the Bankston. That could be significant because of reports of
cement seals failing to properly close off the well from expanding gas.

Capt. Alwin Landry, master of the Damon B. Bankston, had his rig
tethered alongside the Deepwater Horizon, collecting thousands of
barrels of drilling mud from the well and drilling pipe. He would later
see three men jump off the rig into the chilly waters below, then ran a
rescue effort. He sent a crew on a fast recovery craft to pick up
survivors and help cut a life raft free from the burning rig. His cargo
ship also hosted Coast Guard rescuers who set up triage operations on
his deck.

But he also gave the hearing's first description of events leading
up to the explosions, describing the process of removing the drilling
mud, which is supposed to defend the rig against a gas pressure kick
like the one that doomed the Deepwater Horizon:

"At 2100 (9 p.m.) we were advised to await transfer.
Some time after that, my mate, who was also on watch with me - I was at
my desk, back to back with him, finishing up on some paperwork - and he
advised me there was mud coming out the top of the rig. Kind of a black
rain. Coming down on my boat. At first I was kind of annoyed because I
thought we had a broken hose. But when I saw the magnitude of the mud,
I closed the well doors. I looked up to the derrick and saw mud coming
out (the) top of (the) derrick. I called the rig and asked what was
going on. And they advised they were having trouble with the well.
After that they advised me to go to 500 meter standby. Then there was a
pause in their response and shortly after that the first explosion on
the rig occurred."

But Landry wasn't able to get 500 meters away initially because he
was still tethered to the rig. The fact that it had to be manually
released was a point of concern for members of the panel.

Landry said he heard a high pressure release of air or gas before
the explosion. That isn't uncommon, but he said this time it went on
for a longer time before ending in the explosion. That's when he heard
the distress call: "Mayday, mayday, mayday. The rig's on fire. Abandon
ship." He said 16 injured crewmembers were evacuated by helicopter off
his ship.

John McCusker / The Times-PicayuneKevin
Robb coordinated the rescue response to the Deepwater Horizon rig
explosion in April. Here he appears at the Coast Guard and Minerals
Management Service hearing on the rig accident Tuesday in Kenner.

9:55 a.m.: Lack of firefighting capability questioned

Members of the investigative panel and a representative of the
Republic of the Marshall Islands, the country under which the Deepwater
Horizon's flag flew, expressed concern about the lack of firefighting
capabilities in such a disaster.

Robb said he did not believe there was any certified fire marshal on
the scene who could have coordinated efforts to fight the fire that
destroyed the rig. He said a few vessels tried to fight the fire
overnight after the explosions, but the Coast Guard search and rescue
teams were not equipped to do so, nor to coordinate those efforts.

Coast Guard Capt. Hung Nguyen, who is leading the inquiry, questioned the lack of firefighting oversight.

"If firefighting efforts aren't coordinated, and we're putting water
onto a vessel, couldn't that contribute to the sinking of the vessel?"
Nguyen asked. Robb said that was true, but it's not part of the Coast
Guard's response protocols.

Gregory Linsin, representing the Marshall Islands, also expressed concern about the lack of firefighting capabilities.

Tobin Eason, a representative of M-I SWACO, the company that
provided drilling mud for the operation, said the company had five
employees on board at the time of the accident and two, Gordon Jones
and Blair Emanuel, are still missing. He asked Robb if he ever received
any contact from any of the missing, and Robb said he had not.

9:30 a.m.: Coast Guard search for survivors

Kevin Robb, a former Coast Guard rescue helicopter pilot who now
oversees rescue missions from New Orleans, said the search for
survivors ended at 7 p.m. April 23, almost exactly three days after the
accident.

He said it was a difficult decision to stop searching, but that it
was based on an assessment of the water temperature, which was 67
degrees, and other environmental factors. A computer analysis found
that the onset of hypothermia would come after 18 hours and the outside
limits of survival were put at 32 hours, Robb said. Even so, he said
the search continued for a total of 80 hours.

9:10 a.m.: Initial Coast Guard response detailed

The Coast Guard hearings began with the Coast Guard's local search
and rescue expert testifying about the speed of the Coast Guard's
response. Kevin Robb, a former Coast Guard rescue helicopter pilot who
now oversees rescue missions from New Orleans, said he had just
returned home from a 12-hour shift when he got the call of a massive
accident about 45 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River.

He rushed back into work and coordinated the response, gathering
Coast Guard and private helicopters to fly injured victims to hospitals
from New Orleans to Mobile, Ala., and directing boats and other vessels
to the scene.

"I contacted the air stations to make sure they were bringing in
extra crews," Robb said. "Air station New Orleans was incredibly
responsive."

He said the air station in Mobile also responded quickly, with the
first rescue helicopters getting to the scene about an hour after they
received the distress signal on shore. The initial distress signal only
mentioned a fire, but Robb said that phone calls from nearby rigs and
vessels soon let the Coast Guard know it was a far more serious
incident.

Robb said he also got ambulances ready in New Orleans, and about 15
victims were evacuated by helicopters directly to hospitals. Capt. Hung
Nguyen, the co-chair of the investigative panel, commended those who
helped save 115 of the 126 people on board the rig.

Robb gave a special "kudos" to the BP cargo ship Damon B. Bankston,
a 262-foot vessel leased by BP and owned by Tidewater Marine, that was
in the area and quickly moved in to help pick up survivors and provide
triage. The Coast Guard used the ship to station rescue swimmers and
others until the morning after the accident, when the cutter Zephyr
finally arrived.

Robb also described the computer models that were used to determine
the best search patterns for finding survivors. Nguyen referred to the
11 rig workers lost in the explosions as "missing," although eyewitness
accounts have said most of them died instantly in explosions on the
rig's drill floor.

8:50 a.m.: Persons of interest named

Coast Guard Capt. Hung Nguyen designated the following as people of interest in the probe:

Paul McIntyre from BP

Ned Kohnke from rig owner Transocean

Kelley Green from cement contractor Halliburton

Brad Eastman from Cameron International, the maker of the blowout preventer stack that failed

Lee Kaplan from Dril-Quip

Tim Browing from mud provider M-I SWACO

Michael Lemoine from Weatherford Inc.

Ingram Lee from Anadarko Petroleum

Mark Pulman from MOEX USA

8:01 a.m.: Protesters try to disrupt hearing

John McCusker / The Times-PicayuneA protester stands at the start of the public hearing on the Deepwater Horizon incident Tuesday in Kenner.A
pair of protesters interrupted the opening of the hearings being held
in Kenner today by the U.S. Coast Guard and federal Minerals Management
Service, the two agencies investigating what went wrong when the
Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20.

"Materials Management should not be entrusted with the invesitagtion
of an enormous tragedy it helped to create," shouted a man holding a
sign that read "This System is NOT fit to be the Caretaker of the
Planet."

When he was led out by Coast Guard personnel, he was replaced by a
woman who shouted, "Stop offshore drilling now, this hearing is not
legitimate."

The investigative panel of three Coast Guard representatives and
three MMS officials then took an oath to look into what went wrong,
assign fault and commend those who performed admirably in the accident.

After a 10-minute recess, the panel has called its first witness,
Kevin Robb, a search and rescue specialist with the local Coast Guard
district.

John McCusker / The Times-PicayuneThe
members of the board of inquiry into the Deepwater Horizon oil rig
explosion and spill in the Gulf of Mexico take the oath of office at
the start of the public hearing Tuesday in Kenner.